Challenging Evolution

If a species cannot reproduce, it becomes extinct. There are no exceptions.

But the vast majority of new species can and do reproduce.

I hope you are clear now that the "one-celled organism" was actually a population of such organisms that probably numbered in the millions.

And as Jet Black has pointed out, there would be no reproductive problems as this species did not use sexual reproduction.

You are mistaking a conclusion for an assumption. No one is "assuming" that evolution is a fact. That is a conclusion based on the fact that we have observed evolution happening.




The only definition I have seen you provide for "kind" is inter-fertility, ability to reproduce. That is the same as the definition for species.

And it has already been shown that some species are clearly derived from other species, so they cannot be originally separate creations.

If I have misunderstood your definition of "kind", please correct me.

And of the instances shown to me, some are not.

ET poppycock is full of "primitive forms..more advanced forms"

Got a problem with that?

As I understand it, the theory used to say, that everything was descended from one organism, now, we are saying that there were several organisms that each sperately started evolving. This is very similar to the Gen account of creation. God created a bunch of organisms. The difference is in how far back we go.

Can you please list your "some"? If it is not 'all', then there is no problem for TOE, is there?

I am following what you told me about TOC -- reading Genesis 1. "And God said, Let the earth bring forth the living creature after his kind, cattle, and creeping thing, and beast of the earth after his kind: and it was so."

"And God created great whales, and every living creature that moveth, which the waters brought forth abundantly, after their kind, and every winged fowl after his kind: and God saw that [it was] good. And God blessed them, saying, Be fruitful, and multiply, and fill the waters in the seas, and let fowl multiply in the earth. " Also, other passages in the Bible (which you told me to cross-reference) says that kinds breed after their kind. So ... by the sources you gave me for TOC, "kind" is a plant or animal that can breed with other members of its kind and make fertile offspring. Right? If it is the wrong definition of kind for TOC, please tell me why.

Now, this is nearly identical with biological species concept.

Not the evidence I present. I have looked at the papers I present to you and I assure you that they have done the breeding experiments and the new species can make fertile offspring within the species. Or you can check me and look it up for yourself. That's why I give you the references.

How is this permitted in the original TOC? I've looked where you told me to look: Genesis 1 and other cross-references to "kinds" in the Bible, and they all say a kind can only breed with its own kind. Where do you get the idea that making new species/kinds is permitted in TOC?

Where did you get this idea? Populations nearly always have hundreds or thousands. Only in what is called "founder events" do you have two. That's when two individuals -- such as a pair of flies -- gets blown across the intervening ocean to Hawaii.

Instead, what you have is a population of hundreds. One of those hundreds has a variation that works well in that environment. This individual mates with one who doesn't and has 4 kids. By the odds, 2 of them have inherited the variation. So, in generation 2 you have 2 individuals. Now, those 2 also do well in the Struggle for Existence and they mate with two individuals without the variation. Again, for simplicity, each pair has 4 kids and half the kids get the variation. So, in generation 3 we have 4 individuals with the variation. This keeps going for 6 more generations. At this point, we have 512 individuals (at least) with the variation. So, the population was never less than hundreds. But the composition of the population changed over the generations.

Plants and animals are designed. Designed by natural selection. That is what creationism simply refuses to accept: natural selection is an unintelligent proces to get design.

What you should have been taught is that all plants and animals evolved from a common ancestor. And that ancestor was a single-celled organism. You seem to have combined that into the misrepresentation you have now.

Chemistry caused it to divide into 2 cells. We have seen this with protocells. It involves the unique chemical properties of water. When the protocell reaches a certain size, the interaction between water and the cell membrane is such that the lowest energy is achieved if there are 2 slightly smaller cells. So van der Waal's forces and hydrophobic (water hating) interactions cause the cell to divide and "reproduce". You can see something similar with oil droplets. Big ones tend to break up to make 2 smaller droplets.

Single cells reproduce asexually, so there is no mating. But evolution still happens because there are still copying error in the DNA to make variation between single-celled organisms.

Now, sexual reproduction began among single celled organisms where there is no male and female. Instead, bacteria today exchange DNA in plasmids. Today some species of amoeba reproduce asexually sometimes and sexually some other times.

Go ahead and ask questions. I don't mind.

There are still unanswered questions.

For instance, we don't have the exact lineage for many plants and animals. The fossil record is too spotty. We are not sure how the nucleus evolved. What we don't have anymore is possible evidence that could falsify evolution -- show it to be wrong. We have done all the tests we can think of to show common ancestry and natural selection to be wrong, and we haven't been able to. So, while we don't know all the various ways that populations can become isolated, we do know that, when they are isolated facing new environments, new species will evolve.

Sorry, but TOE is based on the idea of common ancestors. Not a single organism. If life arose from non-life via protocells, as I think is likely, there were billions of organisms. If life arose by the RNA world, there were billions of RNA molecules. At least! Probably trillions or even higher.

Not between the species, Razzel! Within the separate species, of course they are reproducing! That's what we are trying to tell you.

So individuals of both species are present in the same streams at the same time, but don't mate with individuals of the other species.

Originally, there were only salmon who mated and laid eggs in the middle of the stream. One species of hundreds of individuals. Then one of the female individuals had a variation that caused her to lay her eggs at the shallow part of the stream. For whatever reason (and we don't know it yet), her offspring did better and more of them survived and returned to the stream to mate than did offspring of those that laid eggs in the center of the stream. Those children inherited their mother's variation to lay eggs at the edges of the stream. The males also had the tendency to mate away from the center. Over the generations, these individuals prospered at sea and continued to have good numbers of them return to the stream to mate. They tended to choose mates who also mated at the edge of the stream instead of the middle. So after 70 years (about 30 generations) there are now 2 populations in the stream. Those that mate and lay eggs in the center and those that mate and lay eggs at the edge. The two populations do not reproduce with each other. But within each population, they reproduce just fine.

So now you have 2 separate reproducing populations where once there was one. Speciation. Remember, that's what a species is: a group of individuals that freely reproduce with others of their population but not with other populations. (and that is what a kind is according to the original TOC)

In this case, those that had the variation to lay eggs at the edge of the stream found a lot of new room for their eggs.

In fact, many times over I have said that it does not falsify the TOE. What it does do is bring into question the validity of the theory.

The TOC can and does explain why branches on the evolutionary tree die out.

I have not heard and explaination from the E as to why it occurs, though I have heard people say that the theory does not know all the mechanisms.

The bottom line, this does not offer overwhelming proof of any theory. Which is the point of the thread.

If the theory of E is open to science disproving it, then, it would stand to reason that challenge would be welcomed rather than critisized. Maybe you should discuss the issue with the other E here before you get back to me on it, so that you have a good solid explaination for the reactions I got when I challenged the theory.

Comparative morphology and physiology that has them placed in the same genus (by the creationist Linneaus). Genetic analysis (independent of the above) which does the same thing.

Think of family relationships in humans. One of my daughters is the spitting image of me (poor thing) and the other is nealy identical to her mother. However, go back a generation, and both look a little like their grandparents on that side of the family, but not as close as they look to their father and mother. Go back to their great-grandparents and there is a little family resemblance (particularly in the noses, each family has distinctive noses) but not much else. The more closely the resemblance, the closer to the common ancestor.

Also, species that are very far apart from the common ancestor won't even try mating. A cow and a horse mate? Nope. No, the mating cues only work if the species recently diverged from the common ancestor. So, the fact that they try mating indicates recent common ancestry. That they can make a viable hybrid -- the mule -- also indicates recent common ancestry.